


A Friend in Need

by AuroraNova



Series: Ties That Bind [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Mention Of Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4926766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraNova/pseuds/AuroraNova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Drinking alone isn’t any fun.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Friend in Need

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s notes: Does anyone else think that in the early seasons Julian is a little TOO desperate with the ladies? Combine it with the idea that Earth must still have some problems, and here’s the result. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Paramount owns all and I’m not making a cent. 
> 
> Timeline: Mid-season 3.

“Dabo!”

Quark’s was in full swing with nearly all the dabo tables in use, a group of Tellarite traders testing various alcoholic beverages with great enthusiasm, multiple card games in progress, and an arm-wrestling tournament on which multiple bets were being placed. Two Vulcan anthropologists were observing the whole scene with academic interest, taking considerable notes on the proceedings.

Jadzia arrived at Quark’s simply looking to have a little fun, but as soon as she spotted Julian she changed her plans. He looked so miserable that she couldn’t possibly leave him alone. She walked up behind him in time to hear him order, “Opketh, please.”

“Make it a bottle to go,” she told Quark, who was delighted to accommodate because an entire bottle of opketh wasn’t cheap. For humans opketh was one of the fastest routes to drunkenness besides Romulan ale. Jadzia herself wouldn’t fare much better, but Julian’s drink of choice only proved that she was right to keep him company.

“Jadzia?” asked Julian, so lost in his misery that he hadn’t noticed her.

“Drinking alone isn’t any fun.”

Quark placed the bottle on the bar with relish. “Fresh from the Andorian tundra. Whose tab will this be on?”

Having brought a few strips of latinum in case opportunity presented itself, Jadzia placed two on the counter. Quark happily slid them into his pocket and turned away.

“My change, Quark.”

“Change? Lieutenant, you must be confusing opketh with one of the other beverages. Fiznut kara wine is slightly cheaper…” She fixed him with an even look until he relented and placed a slip of latinum in front of her, grumbling, “There. Happy now?”

“Always a pleasure doing business. Come on, Julian.”

“I would’ve put it on my tab,” protested Julian as they threaded their way through a party of crewmen headed for a holosuite dressed in Archer-era uniforms.

“And deprive me of the chance to show off the latinum I won at tongo last week?”

He paused for a moment just outside Quark’s. “Thank you.” She didn’t think he was just referring to the opketh.

“That’s what friends are for. My quarters or yours?”

“Mine, I suppose. They’re closer.”

When they were sitting on Julian’s couch with glasses, as he opened the opketh Jadzia ventured, “Are we drinking and talking or just drinking?”

“The former.” After a pause, he added, “So long as the discussion remains only between us.”

“You know I don’t betray confidences.” Yes, she enjoyed a juicy tidbit of gossip, but she also knew when gossiping wasn’t appropriate.

Julian nodded and took a long swig of opketh. “Not bad,” he pronounced.

Jadzia hadn’t tried the drink before. As strong alcohol went it was pleasantly smooth, and she liked how the initial sweetness faded on her tongue. “I don’t know why Curzon disliked this so much.”

It came as a considerable surprise when Julian stared down at his glass and quietly said, “I’m gay.”

Why this made him miserable and necessitated getting completely drunk Jadzia didn’t know, but she had to reply somehow. “So I shouldn’t try to set you up with Ensign Shel?”

“No.” He smiled sadly, but at least he looked at her. “I’m going to need more for this.” Jadzia drained her glass in solidarity, and once they both had refills Julian continued. “I was raised in an ultra-conservative religious community. Homosexuality was viewed as the basest of perversions, a heinous sin. I’ve not considered myself religious for over a decade now, but apparently I internalized that homophobia when I was young. It’s only recently that realized that all the women were an attempt to convince myself, and perhaps the universe, that I’m something I’m not.”

She was reasonably certain he didn’t want her pity, so she offered a more universal observation. “There are small communities like that all over the Federation. Nobody likes to talk about it because we prefer to believe that we’ve moved past that kind of judgmental attitude, but the unfortunate truth is that it persists.”

Julian nodded. “I know intellectually that there’s nothing wrong with me and that most people won’t be the least bit bothered, but…” he trailed off and took another drink.

“But it’s hard to decondition,” she finished for him. Audrid hadn’t gotten to be head of the Symbiosis Commission without a decent understanding of psychology.

“Exactly.”

“Have you considered talking with a professional?” Jadzia realized that the opketh was beginning to take effect and she wanted to make her suggestion before either of them got too drunk. The opketh hit fast, but then Andorians weren’t known for being the most patient species.

“Do you count holocounselors professionals?”

“Yes.” By reputation holocounseling was not considered a first choice, but it was a great deal better than nothing.

“I decided I ought to take the advice I’d give to anyone else, but I couldn’t talk to Dr. Teljor about this so I found a program. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“I’m glad you told me.” It was good for Julian, she knew, and she was honored by his trust. She leaned over to give him a hug. “Your intellectual knowledge is right, Julian. There is nothing at all wrong with you.”

The opketh had to be affecting him as well, because otherwise Jadzia doubted he would have asked, “Did you know? Is that why you never…”

“No.” Shaking her head now involved a kind of sensory time-lag. “When we met, I hadn’t been joined very long and I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I’m still not entirely ready, and while I have no problem with flings, I didn’t think it would be wise in this case.”

“It worked out for the best, really.” This time when he refilled their glasses, Julian’s hand couldn’t remain still. Jadzia briefly hoped that there were no medical emergencies overnight. There was a good reason Starfleet officers were supposed to drink synthale, but in this case she had a feeling that Julian needed the real thing.

“I think so.” Julian certainly didn’t need a girlfriend now, but he clearly needed a friend, and Jadzia was pleased that she could be there for him.

“You’re the most open-minded friend I have. That’s why I decided I could tell you.”

She couldn’t think of anybody on the station who would be offended - even Quark, for all that Ferengi generally frowned on homosexuality among themselves, was unbothered by it in his customers – but she supposed Julian’s background would make him cautious. “I believe that everyone is entitled to love or lust after whoever makes them happy, and when you’re ready, I think you’ll find that people here agree with me.”

Jadzia kicked off her boots and curled her legs under herself, since she didn’t think she’d be going anywhere soon. The part of her that was Dax moved slightly in her abdomen, getting comfortable as well. Poor Julian. It was so unfair that something perfectly natural should cause him so much anguish.

“My parents will likely disown me. We’re not close, but I suspect this will be the death knell for our relationship.” In that moment, Julian looked so very young and vulnerable that she could have forgotten he was only a year younger than the part of her that was Jadzia.

“ _They_ may be the death knell. Not your sexual preference, Julian. Their prejudice.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier.” His speech was less precise now, but she suspected the same could be said for hers.

“I suppose not, but don’t blame yourself.”

“And my cousins. Since I don’t have any siblings I grew up with three of my cousins. I can’t imagine my life without them.”

Was everyone in Julian’s family so intolerant? It would explain why he’d repressed his desires for so long. From Emony’s experience Jadzia knew that it was for the best to remove certain people from one’s life when those people were always toxic. It had been heart wrenching to learn and she suspected this was the kind of lesson that had to be learned firsthand. It had taken Emony years to accept that she was better off without her father.

“No words of wisdom from lifetimes of experience?” prompted Julian.

“You need to do what is healthy for you, Julian.” There would be time for more advice later if necessary; after all, part of wisdom was knowing when it was time to be quiet and listen. “And you know where to find me if you want to talk.”

He tipped back the remaining contents of his glass before remarking, “Jadzia, you are a very good friend.”

“I try.” She swirled the opketh around in her glass for a moment, wondering if she should stop drinking. After all, she didn’t tend to feel the station spinning when sober.

“The great irony here is that I can finally admit to myself that I want to have sex with a man, but I’m too screwed up to go through with it.” Julian poured himself another. “Refill?”

It was that kind of drinking session, then. “Please.” She’d make it up to her liver later.

He held his glass up unsteadily. “Bottoms up.”

“I thought we’d established I’m the wrong gender for you.”

They’d both had enough opketh at that point to find her comment hilarious.

* * *

 Jadzia stumbled out of Julian’s quarters forty-five minutes before she had to report to Ops, miserably hungover in a way that she had never been and which Dax had experienced only as Curzon. Chasing the opketh with lumura hadn’t been one of her better ideas, but she’d been drunk enough to suggest Julian try her favorite Trill liquor. By the pantheon of her ancestors, she was never going to mix opketh and lumura again. She liked Klingon drum ensembles just fine as music, but not when they were pounding out a throbbing rhythm in her head and especially not when her stomach was twisting around to the tune.

“Jadzia?”

Nerys stood in front of her, looking enviably un-hungover. “Shhh,” she instructed her friend. Shouldn’t Julian’s hangover remedy be taking effect by now?

“You’re hungover.”

Brilliant deduction, Nerys. “A bit.”

“You were in Bashir’s quarters.”

“Too drunk to go home.” So she’d ended up in Julian’s bed after all, if not how he’d originally envisioned. Well, she hadn’t envisioned that she’d ever be offering him advice on giving men oral sex either, but she had some useful tips which applied to most species and a few excellent species-specific pointers which she’d shared when they were enjoying the lumura.

“It’s your liver,” Nerys said, her voice disapproving. “See you in Ops.”

Jadzia didn’t know about her liver, but her head was starting to forgive her and her stomach was no longer in open revolt so she assumed the remedy was starting to work. Never a perfect cure, hangover remedies, but she was thankful for what they could do. Namely, allow her to function in approximately forty-two minutes.

In the end, though, her hangover was a small price to pay for being there when Julian needed a friend.


End file.
